Romeo
by The Very Last Valkyrie
Summary: This isn't one of those 'Edward-comes-back-but-Bella's-married-with-kids' stories. This is one of those 'The-Edward-begging-scene-you-both-wish-and-don't-wish-was-in-New-Moon-because-you-like-the-Volturi-storyline' stories. Read it and weep.


This had to be the second most important moment of my life. The first being, of course, the first time I'd told her I loved her. The first time I'd held her. The first time that my skin had felt warm in over ninety years, warm from the sun and the accelerated beating of Bella's heart.

I was willing to go down on my knees and beg her to take me back. I felt like a blind man, desperately groping for the hand that promised salvation. Would she draw it from my grasp?

If she was sane, she would. If she was sensible, she would.

So I had a fairly good chance.

With that in mind, I very carefully picked up a stone from under the spruce and tossed it at her window, gentle enough so it wouldn't break the glass.

Like a real vampire, nowadays I needed an invitation.

The window opened slowly – and why not, when I hadn't been around to overwork the hinges? – and Bella's head appeared.

"Jake?" She called softly into the night. "Jake, you there?"

She didn't look like the creature I remembered from Alice's visions. Her face was less gaunt, the skin less waxy now. The shadows under her eyes were grey, instead of the pansy purple which had haunted me every time I thought of her - in short, every second of every day.

"Bella?" I called softly, and my voice would've been weak from my long months of silence. _Would have_. Would have is the vampire's creed.

She stiffened and peered around, her fingers flying to her temples.

"What's going on?" She muttered. "Where's Victoria? If I'm hearing him this clearly she should be…"

Her eyes scanned the forest.

Then she searched her own back yard, and she found me. Her gasp was a long whistle of breath.

"Ed – " She began to say my name, but something cut her off, and she wrapped her hands tightly around her torso. What was wrong? Was she hurt?

The wind from within the bordering pines stirred her hair as she leaned forward, a veritable Juliet against the moon. I inhaled in a great rush, savouring the flames that scorched my throat dry and made the venom well.

The pain that told me I was home.

"Are you real?" She asked, and I felt the ghost of a long forgotten smile twist my lips.

"To all intents and purposes. Unless you count my current status as a mythical being."

She sagged against the sill.

"I just can't believe you're really here."

Then her anger (_righteous, justified,_ I told myself) flared.

"Why have you come here?"

I sank to my knees in the damp grass and prayed to every god in every pantheon that she would end my suffering.

Whatever she chose, of course, my suffering would end. I would leave, naturally, if she asked me to – but I would never be far away. I'd watch her grow, watch her learn. I'd see that half smile her lips formed when she discovered a new piece of information. I'd see the crinkle of her eyes when she laughed.

I'd see my Bella through the looking glass.

"I'm sorry," I said, and my temper rose at the pitiful, weak word. 'Sorry' wasn't even one one millionth of what I owed her.

Her fingers curled into fists where they rested.

"For what, exactly? This wasn't where you wanted to be. This wasn't where you needed to be."

I moaned aloud.

"How could you believe me, Bella?" I groaned, face practically in the grass as I prostrated myself before the focal point of my entire being. "I swear I've told you that I love you a million times. How could you believe it when I lied to you?"

She inhaled sharply.

"Lied to me?" She asked, lip quivering.

Damn it to Hell. I took a flying leap onto the wall and then moved faster than her eye could follow so I could tell her that I loved her and that I was sorry face to face.

She gasped again when she saw me there, and her scent hit me like a fresh surge of napalm. What did I care? I'd burn for a thousand years to atone for what I'd done to her.

"You," She said when she'd got her breath back. "You lied to me? Edward, I don't understand."

It was the first time she'd said my name. The first time in months I'd heard it from her lips. I drank in every sense of the word – the way her lips shaped it, the way she accented it, the way her fists balled tighter at her sides as she sounded it out. It shot through me like a ripple of pure pleasure.

It was wrong, I know, but I stepped forward and wrapped both of her hands in mine. From so many months without her, her soft skin was like fire on my dead flesh. So pure and so perfect and so very, very lovely.

Bella. The word meant beautiful. And she was.

"I lied to you," I said, the words coming faster because they were the truest I'd ever spoken. "I lied to you in the woods and I'm sorry, oh Bella I'm so sorry, but I had to try and keep you safe and I had no idea about Victoria and I thought that – "

One burning hand covered my lips, and the urge to hold her was unbearable. She was some priceless treasure I had to have possession of, to have and to hold forever so I could exult in its presence every day.

"I am," She said, the delightful crease that I remembered forming between her brows. "Confused. What are you talking about?"

I gently pried her fingers away from my cold lips, storing the memory away for when I needed it. I had lost the sense of what her touch felt like over our separation, and the thought of forgetting her entirely (though I knew it was an impossibility) had tortured me.

"I really do love you, Bella," I told her. "More than anything in the world. I really did mean what I told you before," And I hated the way her muscles locked down, remembering _everything_ I'd said before. "You are my life – now and forever."

She slumped and – miraculously, wonderfully – leaned into my chest and let out a great sigh.

"You still smell the same as always," She murmured.

"So do you."

"Oh," She said, drawing back a little, and noticing the flat black of my irises. "Should I…"

I pulled her gently back to her rightful place. "Isabella Swan. Don't you dare."

She reached her arms right round me then and hugged me hard, splaying her fingers against my back.

I crushed her to me ever so carefully, but enough so that she knew I cared, and I was here, and I would always be here.

I hadn't realised I was speaking until I recognised the words.

"Bella, Bella, Bella…" I crooned. She sighed again and snuggled deeper into me.

"I love you," She whispered, and I felt like my heart was about to jump out of my chest.

After a long, long time, she drew back, delicately running her fingers up the line of my jaw and lightly brushing the shadows under my eyes with a fingertip.

"You should go. You're so thirsty."

"Don't be ridiculous. _You_ should be sleeping, though," I said, returning her caress in kind. "I don't like these dark circles…"

She laughed and, unlike me, her voice did crack. Perfect, perfect, human Bella.

"Will you stay?" She asked.

_Try and stop me_.

"If that's what you want."

"It is."

She left the room and a minute or so later I heard the water pipes complaining as she took a shower.

I took the time to re-familiarise myself with this room, her space – a place that was so _Bella_ in every way. I ignored the black bag at the bottom of the closet, though her birthday stereo strained against the black plastic and it was obvious from the shape what it was.

I eased myself off the bed and walked across the wooden floor, testing each section with my toes. When I'd found the right board, I curled my nails under it and flicked it up. Beneath was everything – the CD, the tickets, the photos…

I pulled out the most absurd one, the one that made me wince. I looked so alien in comparison to the warm, sweet blooded human standing beside me that the contrast disgusted me. She, however, had obviously found herself lacking in some way (if that were even possible). It had been stuck into the album me-side up.

I carefully inserted the CD into the empty player and closed the lid. The tickets I stashed behind the aged computer, and the album I pulled out from where it had been stuffed at the back of the bookcase and reinstated the pictures. This time, it was Bella-side up.

I returned to her bed, sighing in contentment. All ready for her – she'd just have to open her eyes.

She re-entered then, wet hair a waterfall of autumnal waves down her back. Grey sweats. Dark blue tank top. Bella had not changed.

She came to sit with me on the bed as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if forever had not passed since it had been her and I together. Her wet head rested against my shoulder and I breathed deeply through my nose, relishing the warm tang of the blood that made her so unique.

"Bed," I said softly, after a long moment. "Sleep."

She grumbled a little but climbed under the covers all the same. I curled next to her on the comforter, rejoicing in the twist of fate that had made me her bizarre guardian angel once more.

"I don't want to sleep," She moaned.

"But you will."

"Won't."

"Will."

Her bottom lip stuck out a little, even as her eyelids closed. Then she turned her head my way, searching as I'd seen her do once, and a million times before.

I carefully leaned closer and brushed her warm lips with my cold ones, grinning at her rapidly accelerating heart rate.

"Thanks," She sighed as she drifted off.

"Anytime."


End file.
